Media Rating Council to Audit Facebook Metrics

The Media Rating Council (MRC) is to carry out an independent audit of Facebook's advertising metrics, following the social network's recent measurement problems.

The firm admitted last year to at least three separate errors, and is fighting a claim brought by three advertisers following its disclosure in the summer that it had drastically overstated the time users spend watching its video ads. A further revelation in the autumn related to its Page Insights tool, and a month later it detailed discrepancies in 'like' and 'share' button counts, as well as those for mobile search queries. Last month, a survey carried out by US-based research firm Advertiser Perceptions found that around 40% of marketers were planning to conduct independent audits of Facebook's metrics.

The social media giant has more than four million advertisers, and works with 24 ad measurement platforms. It has now agreed to the MRC's independent audit, and is also planning a number of actions to provide its verification partners with details about ad impressions. These include providing specific in-view and duration data for display ads such as details about the milliseconds that an ad was on screen.

In a post, Facebook explained: 'We want to provide transparency, choice, and accountability. Transparency through verified data that shows which campaigns drove measurable results, choice in how advertisers run campaigns across our platforms, and accountability through an audit and third-party verification'.

Web site: www.facebook.com .